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My Personal Thoughts on Some Small Tweaks to Make Zoe Feel Better to Play as...

Stacona··1 votes·162 views

Best Title NA and super original as well, do not steal...

With silliness behind and in all seriousness there are a few things that irk me when playing as Zoe, and these changes would help to make it easier to balance her as well.

The first majour complaint is that I really wish her W was just a normal ability, as cool and unique as the spell stealing is, it just makes it a feel bad spells and makes Zoe feel like she has two spells rather than three... I have some slight qualms with her ultimate, mainly the fact that it feels terrible to put additional points into.

Some ideas:

Spell Thief (W): Cooldown: 20/19/18/17/16 seconds; Cost: 50 mana; Range 550 units Active: Zoe gains 30/40/50/60/70% bonus movement speed for the next 2/2.5/3/3.5/4 seconds, and summons three bubbles that orbit her for the next 10 seconds. The bubbles autonomously hurl themselves at the nearest enemy in range, prioritizing her attack target, and dealing them 25/40/55/70/85(+25%AP) magic damage each.

Passive: Whenever enemy champions cast a summoner spell or item active, they drop a Spell Shard onto the ground that grant sight over a 100-radius area. Spell Shards last for 40 seconds. Some enemy minions spawn with Spell Shards that only drop to the ground for 20 seconds if killed by Zoe. Upon picking up a Spell Shard will refund Spell Thief's cooldown and 25 mana.

(This version removes the spell shards from giving random spells and items which allows Spell Thief to be cast like a normal ability, instead of getting the spell or item active to use, you get a cooldown refund which serves the same purpose, but a lot more control over balancing Zoe since you do not worry about things like her power with a free Flash, Ignite, Heal, Redemption, etc. and feels better for the user since they gain full control over the ability, using it whenever they want to use it.)

Version 1: Portal Jump (R): Cooldown: 11/8/5 seconds; Cost: 50 mana; Range: 575 / 550 units Zoe blinks to the target location, places a large bubble for 1 second and then returns to her original location after 1 second, upon returning she detonates the bubble, dealing 90/150/210(+80%AP) magic damage to struck enemies.

Version 2: Portal Jump (R): CooldownL 11/8/5 seconds; Cost: 50 mana; Range: 575 units Zoe blinks to the target location and returns to her original location after 1 second, gaining a 100/150/200(+90%AP) shield for 2 seconds.

(For the first idea, this just doubles down as the ability being used offensively and for burst damage where you blink in, land your sleep while launching your Q and when you return the Q+R damage will connect with your return as well as firing off W+Passive attacks for the kill.)

(For the second idea, this also goes with being offensive with the spell where as a squishy mage you have a way to mitigate damage when you go in for the harass combo of Q+R+E+Q general combo with W+P thrown in for that extra damage.)

(Anyways, both ideas are thrown out there to make the ability feel better for the user and have the spell feel more like the (short cooldown) ultimate that it is, and more importantly make level the spell feel like it is worth leveling, I hate it when an ultimate feels like it is better off leaving at one point and leveling the other abilities to max rank first before finishing off your ultimate ranks.)

Share your own thoughts about Zoe and let me know what you think here! Have a great day everyone! [sg-kiko]

4 Comments

HappyHazard071 votes

I like her w the way it is to be honest. I feel like you under estimate the amount of utility you get out of it in a teamfight where everyone is spamming summoners you can almost permanently have the move speed+ dmg orbs up in a teamfight. Her q wouldn’t have the same satisfaction factor with ur ult changes as her q damage would have to be reduced significantly. I honestly feel like if you commit to learning her you’ll see why those 2 spells are important in making her kit work as is and how strong they are.

Stacona1 votes

My idea keeps that gameplay since the spell shards still will drop the same way, but you just get the cooldown refunded instead getting an additional spell or item active, because that is the fun part about the ability and not so much what you get out of it.

I like the overall gameplay to W, I just wish it was a normal ability instead of the spell and item active drop gimmick, and just have picking up spell shards refunds the cooldown and some mana so you get the cool and unique aspect to the spell while being a controlled power of just the spell itself for the movement speed and damage. You gain access to the spell like a normal spell and can play around it like a normal spell, only able to use the active with spell shards makes it so RNG dependent that you max it last every time just because it has no reliability to use. Where as giving it a long cooldown and the cooldown refunds on spell shard pick up then it becomes easier to balance and feels better for the user.

I gave two ideas for her ultimate. One is a delay AoE nuke and the other is a short duration shield on spell cast, because right now the ability feels terrible to level right now. The shield probably makes the most sense since it gives her protection for jumping in for her Q+R+E+Q combo while not increasing her burst damage any further.

Dead flag blues1 votes

Um about her ult, with 40% CDR, she could basically refresh her shield every 3sec and since you have around 600ap late game, it would have a 740 hp value ? Nah man that's broken asf

Stacona1 votes

Trying to do math, from an extreme situation, out of an example idea... you are bright...

Remind you, all you need is a downtime to the shield, also the lowest point is level 16+ which is late game. Do not forget that if Zoe has full build then everyone else has full build meaning 700 point shield as a squishy mage breaks super fast considering a marksman auto attack can deal about that much damage in one hit. So even your broken as fuck argument is completely useless, and if Zoe gets super fed then the lowest cooldown never happens cause the game would be long over before then.

But you want her to be encouraged to go squishy, so low base value with a high ability power ratio, everything will be adjusted to be properly balanced.

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